Well, when you consider that the two top picks from their 2006 draft have already ‘graduated’ to the majors, it kind of makes the list look thin. Now all the value is once again in the lower levels of the minors. Like Paul Depodesta has said, you’d like to have a perfectly consistent wave of talent, but even the finest organizations don’t succeed like that.

Even if only, say, McAllister, Montero, and Betances meet their expectations next year (not exactly an unreasonable expectation), the Yankees’ list will look fine once again.

How much ML experience, or what likelihood of a player being in the ML/MiL, qualifies him for this list?  Wouldn’t the list look better if Kennedy and Hughes were included?

I think it’s anyone who would be considered a rookie in the coming season.  So Joba was still on the list last year, but he’s not a rookie anymore.  I forget the number of AB and/or IP to qualify, but it’s out there.

“How much ML experience, or what likelihood of a player being in the ML/MiL, qualifies him for this list?”

BA does not consider any player who no longer qualifies as a rookie to be a prospect.  For pitchers that’s less than 50 innings.  Hitters less than 130 AB.  If they haven’t done either of those they also can’t be on the roster for longer than 45 days.

Holliday heading to Oakland, it seems.  Interesting…Not a deal I would’ve expected Beane to make.

Probably just waiting until mid-season, and then they can flip him for even more talent when someone gets desperate.  Dunno.  Not a bad pick-up, he might be able to keep the A’s in the midst of the race for a little while at least.

Also, take a look at the Red Sox’s top ten, whose farm system is supposedly leaps and bounds better than whatever the Yankees have to offer.

Nick Hagadone is number 3. He’s going to be 23 on the first day of 2009, and has pitched a grand total of 35 innings of professional baseball.

Daniel Bard, the man with a 99mph fastball and nothing else, is number 4.

And yet, the Red Sox are baseball’s model franchise and the Yankees are nothing but dirt beneath their feet.

It’s an okay list, though really, Brackman has no business being on it at this stage of his career.

I am very high on McAllister. A solid three, maybe a two, an innings eater in the making.

Montero has that power, the kind you cannot teach.

Overall, the position players are thin in the organization, as most know.

Not a deal I would’ve expected Beane to make

Since we don’t know the exact details yet (what is Oakland sending away?), I think this is EXACTLY the kind of deal Beane makes.  He gets a quality player he only has to pay for a year, at a (relative to signing a FA of equal quality) discount.  He’s going to get a player that makes the A’s competitive.  As DaPuj said, Holliday could be flipped at the deadline for potentially more, or at worst Beane gets two early picks in 2010.  I expect Beane sent some prospects that others value more than he does, and maybe a player or two that is going to hit arbitration (the A’s do have those, right?) and get more expensive than they’re worth.

I’m not really all that impressed by this list.  Should I be?

Looks a lot better than 5 years ago, doesn’t it?  On the list you’ve got a few guys that could be top of the rotation starters (Brackman, Betances, McCallister), two catchers with high ceiling (Montero great offense, so-so defense, Romaine looks maybe above average at both), 2 guys that could be bullpen specialists (Coke and Melancon), and at the bottom a player that has a solid chance to be starter in the bigs (Suttle).  In between there is Aceves.  I’m not sure what he qualifies as, honestly, but I think it is safe to say it looks like he can pitch in the bigs in some role for several years.

Considering how long it has been since the Yankees have had a top 15 pick, I think this is pretty good.

“I am very high on McAllister”

Last time I got high on McAllister I ate everything in the fridge. Any chance we see brackman this year? It was a ballsy pick but it could pay off.

Keep away from the Tallahassee Bridge, Don.

I think that the thing that jumps out at you is that these guys are all in the lower levels. As someone said, it’s hard to have a continuous wave.  We should have quite a few picks this year, even if we do pick up Sabathia and Teixeira, so the future still looks pretty bright.

Didn’t we have an argument last year about Suttle? I suggested including him as part of a deal and someone said “he’s nothing special.” I guess BA now disagrees with that characterization of Brad.

I believe the Yanks would be happy if Brackman improves his command and finishes 2009 in AA.  Just because Joba started in Tampa and was dominating major league hitters by late August doesn’t mean we should expect that from other prospects - even the highly touted ones.

Also, I agree with Don regarding McAllister.  He profiles as a very solid pitcher who throws hard, generates lots of ground balls and strikes out his fair share of batters.  Though his ceiling is probably lower than Betances or Brackman, he’s a better bet to reach his potential at the major league level.

It’s fun to look at BA’s project 2012 line up:

Catcher     Austin Romine
First Base   Alex Rodriguez
Second Base   Robinson Cano
Third Base   Bradley Suttle
Shortstop   Derek Jeter
Left Field   Xavier Nady
Center Field   Brett Gardner
Right Field   Austin Jackson
Designated Hitter   Jesus Montero
No. 1 Starter   Joba Chamberlain
No. 2 Starter   Chien-Ming Wang
No. 3 Starter   Andrew Brackman
No. 4 Starter   Dellin Betances
No. 5 Starter   Phil Hughes
Closer   Mark Melancon

As for Suttle, he had an .804 OPS in Charleston as a 23 year old - which is quite old for the league.  The jury is still out on whether he has the potential to be even an average major league starter.

I think 1 through 5 on that list is extremely strong. Two catchers, a CF and two pitchers with #1 ceilings. All of those are premium spots on any roster. The fact that Melancon is #9 speaks to the top-end quality of the system, though I’d have personally had him above Coke and Aceves.

I think the list is pretty decent, especially considering Joba is one of the top young pitchers in the majors already.

As to the Holliday deal, it was for Carlos Gonzalez, Greg Smith and Huston Street.

That is a totally typical Beane deal - he knows Street is worth more on the market than he actually is worth, and he is going to be arbitration eligible soon, so he uses him (and a top prospect in Gonzalez) to get a MAJOR player in Holliday who will turn into two top picks next year. Great move.

I dunno about the deal from Colorado’s end, though. I like Smith and Gonzalez is a great prospect. I guess they, too, can flip Street for something good. I dunno.

I was off a year, Street was arbitration eligible LAST year.

I’m not down on that list. Montero, Brackman, Betances, and Melancon get me pretty excited. Is Austin Jackson over hyped or am I imagining things?

The AL Rookie of the Year results are in (Longoria winning in the AL and Soto in the NL were givens), and Joba got 1 point.

1 point!!

Joey Devine got 3!!!

So, re: Holliday to A’s, isn’t that at least a little good news?  Beane’s not going to sign him long-term, so unless he gets traded again mid-season (distinct possibility, though) he’ll be a FA after 2009. Intriguing.

Wow, I didn’t even think of that point - good call, DaPuj!

Holliday going to oakland is great, he’ll basically be on a 1 year tryout in a stadium that doesnt inflate hitting statistics upwards of #.

that should have said #

ok nevermind the percent sign doesnt work

Preview is your friend.  Simple “%” works for me, btw. - linux/firefox.

ah i see, turns out the % doesnt like being directly next to a number.

Hmm, 10%.  But not the atypical  (</pre>).

Huh, the preprocessor still ate that.  Incredibly fascinating.

damn, i’m bummed that Holliday isn’t going to be a yankee this year, but perhaps next year.  the Rockies got a pretty nice haul, not sure what the comparable package would be in yankee terms.  Jackson, Hughes, and Melancon?
maybe slightly less than Hughes, but more than Kennedy…

Is there any precedent for the A’s trading for Holliday and flipping him to another team before the season begins?

I see the Nationals picked up Scott Olsen and Josh Willingham. Not a bad team they’re putting together down there, is it?

They’ve got a promising young catcher, a nice young OF with promise and a decent top of the rotation. If Nick Johnson comes back healthy this year, they’re not looking half bad:

C Flores
1B Johnson
2B ?
SS Guzman (105 OPS+)
3B Zimmerman
OF Willingham, Dukes, Milledge

P Lannan, Olsen, Perez?, Hill?, Free agent?

The reason I bring this up is that some folks seem to think that either Baltimore or Washington could make a splash and sign Teixeira, the idea being that he’s a Maryland native.  I don’t see it happening, but if he ends up with the Nationals (which, this trade at least indicates that the Nationals are looking to do *something*) then you’d have to think that Nick Johnson becomes available, right?

Yeah, yup, I was just trying to think what the comparable package would have been from the Yankees and I honestly couldn’t think of one (besides Gonzalez=Jackson, of course), which I guess is why the Yanks didn’t pull it off.

not sure what the comparable package would be in yankee terms.

I always try to figure this out. I was thinking something like Hughes, Melancon and Montero, but I think that Gonzalez kid is close to MLB ready.

i think Gonzalez > Jackson, but Hughes > Smith.  then Street = Melancon with Street’s track record offset by his arbitration eligibility??

seems about right, though i could be off.

Holliday going to oakland is great, he’ll basically be on a 1 year tryout in a stadium that doesnt inflate hitting statistics upwards of #.

This is awesome. We can see what Holliday is like in the AL, in a more normal ballpark, and should get a crack at signing him if we want.

so in 2012, Jeter is still playing SS? ugh

ml242, you’re a bit off. 

The SS?ugh position will not even be invented until 2013, and won’t be commonly used outside of teh 8th inning until 2017, which is the year that teh 8th is officially spun off into its own sport and the other eight innings begin to be called, derisively, Baseball 1.0.  (This series of events will cause all New York tabloid newspapers and talk radio stations to fold, as Joba Chamberlain simultaneously starting and pitching teh 8th throughout the entire game leaves them nothing to write about.)  In fact, it is Derek Jeter, jr. who will become the first great SS?ugh beginning in the 2020s.  Rumors will circulate that he is the bastard son of Jeter and Minka Kelly, but let’s just say that his octave range is a bit wider than his fielding range.

Here is the Yankees’ projected lineup for 2024, for those who are curious.  I shouldn’t post this because I got it from the $1000/year super-mega-platinum section of the Baseball Prospectus website.  But I made so much money betting Don’s stock market predictions in the past couple of years that I can afford really good lawyers.

1. CF

1. CF&#xoh;shit - Brett Gardner (it takes him a while to master a new league)
2. SS?ugh - Derek Jeter, jr.
3. 1B$doh - Mark Texeira (Boras wanted 17 years but Cashman refused to cave)
4. DH^whu - Ted Williams (Unfrozen by Hank at trade deadline in 2022. Red Sox cursed for another 86 years)
5. C!!! - Paulo Prowess (the greatest catcher of all time)
6. RF*meh - Xavier Nady, X
7. 2B/dji - Robinson Cano’s greatest at-bats (as we learned in Moneyball, Billy Beane applies concepts from the derivatives market… eventually, he will learn how to create derivatives of the players themselves, and package particular parts of their careers… Cano, a notoriously streaky player, is the perfect candidate for this treatment; Yanks obtain him after Beane’s trading in exotic sub-prime loogies destroys Baseball 1.0 in the Crash of 2021) 
8. LF#hott - Matsuibot (created when Hideki’s porn collection develops artificial intelligence and forms itself together like Voltron)
9. 3B@yhlh - Alex Rodriguez (tragic situation… Boras forcing him to play until HR record incentive vests, but Kabbalah has made him irrationally afraid of the number 763)

Hilarious

I particularly like the 8th spot in the lineup!

As for Suttle, he had an .804 OPS in Charleston as a 23 year old - which is quite old for the league.  The jury is still out on whether he has the potential to be even an average major league starter.

All true.  We also have to remember that he was in his first full year of pro-ball (and a wood-bat league).  He also had some injuries, and a bad slump at the end of the year really hurt him.  I believe in August at one point he has 8th in his league in OPS (better than Montero). 

All that said, he’s going to start the year in Tampa, and he needs to show success there.  Ideally of course he has an OPS north of .900 at the end of June, and plays the second half in Trenton.  But even if he can finish the year with an OPS just north of .800, that still gets him to Trenton for 2010.  I’m not sure about his defense, but if it’s even average that’s good.  I doubt Suttle will be a star, but if he can just be a league average 3B for 2-3 years while he’s cheap, he may be great as a transition for the Yankees when ARod can no longer play 3rd.  Or there are a number of teams that would like a cheap, league-average 3B, so he can be a good trade-chip.

In other subject. I think that offering Wang a contract extension may be a very good idea now, don’t you think??

Will he agree to a 30 million 5 year contract?

I have heard some talk on this site or somewhere that the Yanks should sign Baldelli and I concur.  I think it is a perfect way to use him. As a righty hitter he would play primarily against lefty’s allowing him his rest to stay fresh and affording the team to continue to allow Brett Gardner to be in the lineup the majority of the time. If Brett flounders, you have Melky to step in and hit from his best side. That is providing that Melky isn’t first traded.  If Brett can’t even hit .250 against righty’s the team will find out not to project him in the long term plan.  On the other hand if Brett hits near .300 you begin to have confidence that he may be the long term cf’er.  Baldelli showed something this year that he can contribute even when not playing every day.

Will he agree to a 30 million 5 year contract?

would you forfeit about $20M for no reason?

I don’t think Baldelli wants to sign with the Yanks, just a gut feeling though.  A platoon of him and Miranda down the road would be interesting if other 1B plans fall apart (with Nady & Baldelli switching when both play obviously).

This list points out the absolute necessity of our doing well in the FA market.  I’m underwhelmed.  We have no one likely to have the impact in the near future, or the long term, of Lars Anderson.  Montero is the only one who looks like a possible superstar but on the other hand last year we were so high on Hughes, IPK, and Joba and in past years neither Cano or Wang were ever rated as highly as Eric Duncan so who knows.

I think that offering Wang a contract extension may be a very good idea now, don’t you think??

The Yankees decided not to lock him up last spring primarily because all pitchers are injury risks.  So now that he has been injured they should give him a long-term contract before he’s even shown that he’s recovered?  And before you say that it’s not an arm injury, remember that: 1) Wang also has an arm injury or two in his past, and 2)he would not be the first guy to hurt his arm by pitching on a bad foot.

For anyone curious, here is Chad Jennings’s take on BA’s top ten.

Oh, and I agree with everyone on Wang

I think it would be a good idea to offer him an extension.  I think it is risky because of his injury history, which is why that extension should not be for a ton of money.  And I think since it won’t be for a ton of money, he’s unlikely to take it since he’ll probably get a lot more as a FA (assuming he stays healthy).  It’s still a good move to offer him one he’s unlikely to take, because it can show (if done properly) that you have an interest in the player, which can be useful when he enters FA.  Also, if he happens to take the under-market contract, worst case you’ll have an oft-injured pitcher at a price the Yankees can afford to absorb, best case you’ll have an (near) Ace at a great price.